


The Undisclosed Desires In Your Heart

by felixgaeta



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 22:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felixgaeta/pseuds/felixgaeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott notices that Stiles' heartbeat rises whenever they touch. He tries to figure out why that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Scott noticed was when they were running from Jackson.

Well, more like moving as fast as they could. It was kind of hard to run when one of them was mostly paralyzed.

Stiles’ heart rate was definitely accelerated while they were trying to get away from the kanima, but it made sense. Being chased by a kanima is pretty terrifying, and it’s gotta be worse when you’re basically helpless. So he didn’t really give Stiles’ heartbeat much thought. Not until he got him into the chair.

Once it was clear that they weren’t in immediate danger, Stiles started to calm down a little. His heart rate was still fast, but it started to drop. Then Scott put his hand on the back of Stiles’ head, and the tempo was right back to where it was before.

That was weird. Shouldn’t his heartbeat be dropping now that he’s safer? Why would it suddenly jump back up? Still, Scott didn’t really think much of it at the time, since he had more pressing concerns to worry about.

He actually forgot all about it until he noticed the same thing happen again, a couple of weeks later.

This time it wasn’t any life or death situation; they were just in class. A handout was being passed from the front of the room to the back. Once Scott got the handout, he started reading it while somewhat absentmindedly passing the remaining stack to Stiles. He was planning on just putting the stack on Stiles’ desk, since that was quicker than waiting for him to notice that the sheets had reached him. It turned out that Stiles was actually ready to take one and pass them on for a change, and their hands brushed against each other. Scott almost missed it because he was trying to read the sheet, but there was a definite jump in Stiles’ heart rate at the moment of contact.

Huh? They weren’t in any scary situation now. In fact, they were in a pretty boring and mundane situation. Why would Stiles’ heartbeat go up just from Scott’s hand brushing his? Was he afraid of him now? Has all of the stuff they’ve been going through made him jumpy? The idea of Stiles being scared of him was way more upsetting than he thought it would be. 

Scott had to find out what was wrong, so he began investigating the matter.

He first started to take note of Stiles’ reactions to other people touching him. For the most part, there seemed to be no effect. His heart stayed steady if someone other than Scott tapped him on the shoulder, bumped into him in the hallway, or made any other form of contact. After no results from that, Scott started to get a little worried that he was being paranoid, so he touched Stiles innocuously a few times. Sure enough, the change in heartbeat was there every time. 

Maybe Stiles was just afraid of all werewolves. For all Scott knew, Stiles has been afraid of him since he got bitten, and he just didn’t realize until now. That theory seemed promising, but it got debunked once Isaac shoulder-checked Stiles during practice. If Stiles was afraid of Scott, wouldn’t he be afraid of Isaac too?

A week into being observed, Stiles gave him a weird look when he caught Scott staring. He didn’t normally avoid looking at Stiles, of course, but he was definitely looking at him way more than he usually did, in an attempt to not miss anything. Stiles was starting to pick up on the extra attention, so Scott dropped it before he started asking questions. He already got a few answers, anyway, and was pretty sure Stiles was just afraid of him for reasons unknown.

Once all of the chaos died down and he only had to worry about his human life, Scott decided to bring it up.

He wanted to just come out and say what he’d noticed, but he didn’t want to come across as accusatory. If he was too confrontational, Stiles could get even more scared.

“Stiles?” Scott said as they drove to the lacrosse field for one of their two-man practices.

“Yeah?”

Scott paused, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. “You…you know you don’t have to be afraid of me, right?”

Stiles just looked confused. “Why would I be afraid of you?” he asked. His heart sounded pretty steady, so he wasn’t trying to hide anything. That or he was a better liar than Scott thought.

“I dunno, because I could kill you at any time?”

Stiles’ face made it clear that he found the suggestion ridiculous. “Well you technically could, but why would you? You’ve got the hang of controlling your wolf urges, even during the full moon. I’ll admit that some of the other wolves are really fucking scary, but you’re definitely not one of them.”

His heart was steady throughout. Instead of getting some sort of answer, Scott was just more confused. “Alright,” he said while he tried to come up with another possibility. Right now he was fresh out of theories.

“Why do you ask?” Stiles questioned as they pulled into the field.

Scott gave a noncommittal shrug. He didn’t really want to admit that he was paying so much attention to Stiles’ heart. Besides, if Stiles was scared of him, and he still wasn’t totally sure that he should rule out that theory, then he didn’t want to make it worse by reminding him of his heightened senses.

Fortunately, Stiles didn’t pry. And once they started practicing, Scott stopped thinking about it. But then he gave Stiles a friendly pat on the shoulder after a particularly good score, and Stiles’ heartbeat went up again. He spent the rest of practice and the ride home wondering what Stiles was hiding, but didn’t mention it again.


	2. Chapter 2

Scott ran through the pouring rain as quickly as he could to Stiles’ house. He was going to ride his bike there, but he didn’t like his bike getting all wet, so he left it at home. He briefly considered cancelling, but he decided not to let a little rain ruin their plans.

Unfortunately, that little rain decided to turn into a downpour. He just hoped his bag’s claim to being waterproof would turn out to be true.

After what felt like forever but was probably less than fifteen minutes, Scott got to Stiles’ house. He rang the doorbell repeatedly until Stiles opened the door.

“Dude, you’re soaked,” Stiles said as Scott walked in and took off his shoes.

“I noticed,” Scott replied. “You got a spare towel?”

“Yeah, grab one of mine from the linen closet.”

A minute later, Scott was drying off in the bathroom while Stiles got Scott’s backpack from downstairs so he could make sure nothing inside got too wet. After a couple of minutes of wringing and rubbing, Scott could see that his clothes were a lost cause. Unless they were put in a dryer, they were going to be soaked and cling to him uncomfortably for hours. Accepting defeat, he stripped out of everything except for his boxers and went to ask Stiles if he had a change of clothes he could wear.

“So your pack of gum looks disgusting, but otherwise everything seems-” Stiles abruptly stopped talking once he looked up at Scott. His heart rate doubled. “…fine. What happened to your clothes?” he continued, turning back to Scott’s bag to double check everything. Scott had a feeling he was only doing that to avoid looking at him.

“Dude, they were soaked. I didn’t want to sit around in them. Can I throw them in the dryer? I’m also freezing, so some clothes would be awesome.”

“Oh. Sure, no problem. Go put those in the dryer; I’ll get some clothes out.” Stiles’ eyes stayed on the backpack until Scott was out of the room. 

Why was he acting so weird? Was he threatened by his abs? Scott glanced down, and didn’t think they were anything to be particularly intimidated by. Maybe he shifted and didn’t notice. When he went in the bathroom to get his clothes he checked in the mirror. No, he was still as human as he’s ever been.

Scott hated this. Stiles was his best friend, and now for some reason he seemed to get all scared whenever Scott was around. And he wouldn’t even admit it! How could Scott make things better if Stiles wouldn’t address whatever was bothering him?

While he was putting his clothes into the drier, something occurred to him. Maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t that Stiles was afraid of him. Fear isn’t the only thing that accelerates your heartbeat, after all.

Attraction can accomplish that as well.

He needed to find out if he was right. After turning on the dryer, he rushed back to Stiles’ room.

And Stiles…wasn’t there.

At first Scott got worried. Did Stiles bolt? But then he heard the microwave starting downstairs, and noticed the shirt and pants left on his bed. It seemed weird that Stiles was making food when they normally waited at least a couple of hours for that, but he had a feeling that Stiles just looked for an excuse to leave the room until Scott was dressed.

While pulling on and buttoning up the jeans, Scott realized he had no clue what he would do if he asked and Stiles said yes. He honestly wasn’t sure if he would like to pursue anything with Stiles. He’d never really viewed Stiles in that light and was pretty sure he was straight, but Stiles was, well, Stiles. Scott was always a little happier when they were together, and he felt like he could trust Stiles with anything. But weren’t those things normal when it came to best friends?

He’d have to think more about it. Stiles deserved more than a few seconds of consideration.

Once Scott was dressed, Stiles could still be heard rummaging around downstairs. Scott considered going down to lend a hand to whatever he was doing, but he had an inkling that their separation was intentional on Stiles’ part. He paced around the room, feeling restless. What was he going to do? Maybe he should test Stiles so he could be sure of what was going on. After all, it would be silly to worry about reacting to a crush if it turned out that there was no crush to react to.

In that case, he should do a final test on the fear theory. He still wanted to make sure Stiles wasn’t just getting worried about the werewolf thing.

After a few more unbearably long minutes, Stiles returned to his room. He walked a bit slowly when entering the room, as if scoping the area out for bare chests or werewolves. Scott wasn’t too focused on Stiles, though; he was paying much more attention to the smell of popcorn filling the room. It wasn’t his favorite food, but Stiles seemed to enjoy it a lot, so he saw no reason to complain. Stiles placed the bag of popcorn on the desk, and left it there while he set up his laptop. The plan for the evening was to find the worst sounding movies on Netflix and watch them. Usually those movies weren’t hard to find.

While Stiles was setting up the laptop, Scott had an admittedly tactless idea. He grabbed the (already opened) bag of popcorn and sat down next to Stiles. He protracted his claws, and waited until Stiles turned to face him. When he did, he used his claws to cut off the upper inch of the bag. It was pretty uncomfortable to do, and took a few cuts to get done. The bag actually seemed more difficult to eat from when he was done.

But he really didn’t care about the popcorn. He was paying attention to Stiles’ heartbeat. It sounded pretty steady, and when he finished and looked over Stiles was giving him a rather judgmental look. “Dude, those bags aren’t exactly made out of steel. If you really wanted to vandalize it, you could’ve just used your fingers. And if the intention was to impress me with your weirdo wolf skills, you’re gonna have to do something way cooler than that.”

“I was just trying to make the opening wider,” Scott replied with a shrug, and then switched the topic to selecting a movie. It appeared that his abilities didn’t really scare Stiles at all. They never really did seem to scare him, so he wasn’t terribly surprised. He considered pursuing this path of inquiry further, but he couldn’t really think of anything he could do that wasn’t just as horribly awkward, if not more. He was way too in control of his powers at this point to claim that he wolfed out by mistake. Even if he did claim that, then Stiles would just get all worried and the evening would be ruined. He tentatively put that theory to rest.

His next idea came while they were browsing for a movie to watch. He had to test the crush theory now, but could think of no way to test it. So while they browsed the options, he made sure to steer them to a movie that seemed like it would have a make out or sex scene. Maybe it would somehow be easier to figure something subtle to do if there was a sex scene going on.

They agreed on a badly dubbed European film that starred a bunch of young people who looked like they could be models. Sure enough, ten minutes into the movie the blonde was giving a blowjob to the awkward nerd.

He could sense that Stiles was getting kind of uncomfortable, but was trying to hide it by making jokes about the scene. They didn’t really watch movies together all that often, so he wasn’t sure if this was something he should be reading into. Maybe Stiles was just one of those people that gets uncomfortable when watching a sex scene with someone else in the room.

Still, watching the scene gave him an idea. But it felt like an incredibly stupid idea, and he would later on question why it was the first thing that popped into his head.

He considered waiting for Stiles to look over at him, but decided that would make his test far too obvious. Plus, then he might actually think about the plan and realize how much it sucked. So before he doubted himself, he put one of his butter-covered fingers into his mouth to lick off the remains from the popcorn.

If he wasn’t about to wash the pants he was wearing, he would normally lick his fingers after they ate a messy finger food. That in itself was normal. But he didn’t normally focus on the technique of it, on trying to make it as slow as possible. He never normally worried about whether or not he looked hot while doing it.

Could someone even look hot while licking their fingers? For the sake of his pride, he hoped that the answer was yes.

Not soon after starting, he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see if Stiles turned over to watch. He would have to analyze him afterwards, but he knew that if he saw him looking over he would feel stupid and stop. Maybe closed eyes would make the act look sexier. Or it could just make him look like a teenager who is way too into popcorn.

Scott started to avoid thinking about what he was doing. His self-doubting thoughts weren’t exactly helping. Instead he just focused on sucking on his index finger as slowly as he could, and even hollowing out his cheeks a little for good measure. He then slowly withdrew his index finger and worked on his middle finger. This time he decided to throw in a little appreciative sigh towards the end. While putting his ring finger, he remembered to try and pay attention to Stiles. He wasn’t talking anymore, and his heart sounded pretty loud. It sounded like the sex scene ended in the movie, but he felt like he had to finish what he started. It’d seem suspicious if he just left two fingers dirty.

Dirty. That described how he felt right now. His already licked fingers felt just as gross as they did before. He was trying to control his appreciative noises, but they were becoming a bit lewder. When he got to his pinkie, he wondered if Stiles was imagining him sucking Stiles instead. That was pretty much the intent when the idea appeared, but now Scott was actually thinking of the imagery and he could feel himself blushing.

Instead of sucking his thumb, he quickly licked it. He wanted to end this before he thought too much about it and got a boner from cleaning his fucking hands.

He kind of wanted to close his eyes forever to avoid facing what he just did, because he felt like he just looked pretty idiotic. However, he opened his eyes when he realized that Stiles’ heartbeat was quieter. He turned towards the door to see Stiles leaving the room. Huh. He really wasn’t sure what to make of that. He considered giving Stiles his space, but potentially making a fool out of his little performance would be for naught if he didn’t know how Stiles reacted. He paused the movie on the scene where the characters discovered the first dead body, and focused his ears on Stiles. It was a bit of a struggle to hear over the dryer, but he could make out what was happening.

Stiles was downstairs. The popcorn bag was missing, so he presumably was throwing that away. They normally just pushed it to the side until the movie was over, but maybe Stiles was trying to be neater. He heard the kitchen sink get turned on, but Stiles was walking out of the kitchen. He walked down the length of the house, further and further from Scott, until he reached some room. Scott had to think for a second about where he could have gone, but once he heard yet another sink running he realized he must’ve gone to the downstairs bathroom.

Between the two sinks, the dryer, and the thumping of Scott’s own heart, it was near impossible to make out Stiles’ actions. Stiles was clearly trying to avoid Scott’s enhanced hearing. On top of the added noises, Stiles was doing whatever it was that he was doing as quietly as possible. He could still hear Stiles’ heartbeat, which was going really fast, but he couldn’t hear anything else. What was he doing, and why did he go to such lengths to hide it?

Scott turned the movie back on and tried to focus on the cheesy acting when he suddenly realized that Stiles was clearly jerking off.

Unfortunately, the dead body scene was short and the following one was boring as hell, so his mind wandered. He wondered why Stiles went through all that trouble of masking his sounds if masking them would just make them obvious. Stiles probably didn’t think that Scott would pay that much attention, and just needed to make sure he didn’t accidentally overhear.

More importantly, was he actually jerking off because of Scott’s bizarre self-grooming? Scott’s gut was saying yes, but he didn’t actually know that. He was testing Stiles, so of course he would assume that the outcome actually related to the test. Maybe the sex scene actually got pretty hot. Or maybe Stiles’ dick was 16 years old and didn’t need a reason to get hard. And okay, thinking about Stiles’ dick felt like an out of bounds thought.

Well, for now he decided he should avoid testing Stiles any further. That one was likely more obvious than he meant for it to be, and he didn’t want to make the whole evening awkward.

The two sinks turned off, and Stiles entered the bedroom soon after.

“Where’d you go?” Scott asked, trying to be as casual as possible. Stiles smelled slightly different, but Scott was pretty sure that the new smell was just hand soap. There could be some fainter smell underneath, but Scott really didn’t want to investigate that.

“I went to chuck the popcorn bag and wash my hands because I’m not a savage,” Stiles said. His heart rate was still a little higher than normal, but that could be because he usually runs up the flight of stairs. Otherwise he seemed pretty normal and calm. Calm enough to address what happened in a casual way, at least.

“I didn’t want to miss any of the awesome plot!” replied Scott.

Stiles snorted in reply, and ended the conversation at that. They went back to watching the movie and making jokes about the dialogue, and the atmosphere was pretty relaxed.

The rest of the evening was pretty mundane. Scott avoided any further tests, and thinking about the topic altogether. He’d rather not daydream, and just enjoy spending the evening with his best friend. They finished the movie, and fortunately only had to sit through one more sex scene. It was pretty awkward but incident free. After the movie ended, they ordered pizza and selected a second movie to watch while waiting for it to come. This time they picked a comedy. They ate the pizza while watching the movie, and paused at one point to say hi to Sheriff Stilinski once he got home. After the second movie ended, it was time for Scott to leave. It had stopped raining, but Scott wasn’t looking forward to the jog home. Stiles gave him a lift instead.

Since the evening was over, he decided to do one final test. Once Stiles stopped in front of his house and turned to say goodbye, Scott moved in for a hug. Hugs weren’t exactly unheard of between them, but they also weren’t common. They usually preferred just hi fiving.

Stiles’ heartbeat went up a little when he saw Scott’s approach, and he pulled away before they could actually hug. Scott felt hurt, but then Stiles spoke. “Nuh uh, I want a real hug. No awkward over the cup holder shit,” he said as he opened the driver’s door. 

Both of them got out of the car, met by the hood, and hugged. Stiles’ heart was racing. Scott’s was going a bit faster too, to be honest. Something about this hug made it feel more intimate than their previous ones. It was rather comforting. They broke apart after a few seconds.

Stiles was now wearing a fond smile. “See ya, Scott,” he said with a wave, going back to his Jeep.

“Bye,” Scott replied, and didn’t go back inside until Stiles’ car could no longer be seen.

It wasn’t until Scott’s mom asked where he got the shirt from that he realized he was still wearing Stiles’ clothes. Did Stiles intentionally let that happen so he wouldn’t have to see Scott change again? Probably not. What was more interesting was that Scott never noticed that the clothes weren’t his, that they didn’t quite fit and they smelled like Stiles’ detergent instead of his. Maybe he was so comfortable with Stiles that wearing his clothes felt normal and natural. Maybe he was just distracted by everything else.

All he knew for sure was that once he noticed that he was wearing Stiles’ clothing, he felt very content.

He took off the pants once he got to his room, but decided to wear the shirt to sleep. That probably wasn’t the normal reaction to realizing you’re wearing your best friend’s shirt, but Scott was too comfortable in it to really care.


	3. Chapter 3

“You know, I don’t think keeping that wallpaper is very helpful for the whole moving on thing.”

Scott felt a bit like a deer caught in the headlights. He hadn’t really hidden his laptop from Stiles; they just hadn’t recently been in his room while it was on. The last time Stiles saw it was probably back when he and Allison were still dating, and his wallpaper of the two of them felt less silly.

Resisting the urge to go to the desk and close the computer from Stiles’ eyes, Scott instead sat down on his bed. “Who says I wanted to move on?” he asked.

Stiles shrugged, taking a seat adjacent to Scott. “Well, I figured that since you two are no longer in contact, the next logical step would be to move on.”

“We’re not in contact because I’m giving her the space she wanted. I’m holding out hope that this really will be temporary, so I see no reason to try and move on.” Scott was pretty sure that his tone was getting a bit too defensive, but he doubted he could really control that.

Stiles seemed to notice, and fortunately went down the more respectful route instead of the insistent one. “Alright, I understand. I guess I just figured it would probably be a better idea to not think about her too much, given that you guys are currently broken up.”

“Yeah, that is a better idea. The only problem is I can’t stop thinking about her,” said Scott. “If I keep that wallpaper, then at least I can remember the good times we had. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I get it. You can’t control the feelings you have for people, or how much you think about them. Well, I can’t anyway. I know my crush is probably futile, but I can’t just make it go away. I just gotta wait until something happens or the crush dies down.”

A question popped into Scott’s head, and he knew he probably shouldn’t ask it. Still, he was curious. “Are you talking about your crush on Lydia or me?”

They turned their heads to look at each other in unison

It had been a little over a month since that rainy day when Scott realized that Stiles probably has a crush. They hung out a handful of times in between then and now, but Scott decided to put his investigation to rest. He was already so painfully awkward when he tried to see if he was right the last time, and he didn’t really think he needed to test it anyway. Stiles almost definitely had a crush on him. He still wasn’t totally sure about his feelings, so he didn’t bring it up. Still, the elephant in the room was starting to get rather irritating, and he just wanted it out in the open.

Scott was looking at Stiles expectantly, while Stiles’ expression was very wary. After a moment he cracked out a smile, but Scott could tell it was forced. “I know that you’re well aware of how handsome you are, but that doesn’t mean everyone has a crush on you. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I don’t think that everyone has a crush on me. I just know that you do,” replied Scott. Even if he didn’t know before, Stiles’ response confirmed his suspicions.

Stiles tried to think of a way to continue denying it, but slumped when he decided it was pointless. "Okay, how could you possibly know that?”

“Your heartbeat rises whenever I touch you,” Scott said.

Stiles’ expression was made of pure exasperation. “I fucking hate werewolf hearing,” he muttered, turning his head away from Scott to stare intently at his own legs. “How long have you known?”

“A little while. I started to suspect when I had to change out of my wet clothes a little while ago and your heart started beating really fast. Then I tested it with the, uh, finger licking, and I could tell you went to the bathroom to jack off.” He almost omitted the last detail, but felt like they might as well lay it all out in the open now that he had brought it up.

Stiles rubbed his head and turned even further away from Scott, seeming to get more and more annoyed. Scott hoped he was annoyed at the situation, and not at him. “I knew that was a bad idea. And by the way, your weird little ‘performance’ wasn’t even particularly hot. If it wasn’t for the softcore porn in the movie, it wouldn’t have had any effect on me.”

Scott couldn’t help but smile a little. Stiles could get pretty cute when he was indignant. “Are you sure about that? You didn’t seem particularly invested in the scene before I started giving you ideas.”

Stiles looked like he was ready to punch Scott. He probably would have if Scott wasn’t guaranteed to win any physical fight. “Okay, whatever. Good job, you sleuth. And by the way, how the hell were you able to even hear me? How good is your hearing?”

“I couldn’t hear you, but turning on all the sinks downstairs and then going to the bathroom made it a little obvious.”

“Fair point,” was all Stiles said in response. The room then got awkwardly quiet, with neither one of them knowing what to say. Scott could tell that he embarrassed Stiles, much more than he intended, and he didn’t know how to fix it. He considered changing the topic and pretending he never brought it up, but he really didn’t want to sweep this under the rug again. Unfortunately, he really couldn’t think of anything to say. All he could really do was watch Stiles as he avoided acknowledging Scott’s presence in the room.

After a couple of minutes, Stiles spoke. “Is there a reason why you brought all of that up? Or was it just to mock me?” Stiles still wasn’t looking at Scott, and his expression was kind of heartbreaking. Scott really wanted to make it go away.

The urge to kiss the look away suddenly appeared, and Scott wasn’t sure where it came from. Probably from the confusing feelings he’d been having for the past few weeks. Deciding to sate the desire, he carefully tilted Stiles’ chin towards him and kissed him.

He expected Stiles to kiss him back. He expected him to be happy. He thought the kiss would speak for itself, that it would tell Stiles that maybe his feelings weren’t unrequited. At this point, Scott was pretty sure they were returned. Even if he still had doubts, kissing Stiles felt really nice, and that had to mean something, right?

He was right about Stiles kissing him back, but wrong about everything else. After a few seconds Stiles jerked his head away and got off of the bed to pace around the room. Scott couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. “What’s wrong?” Scott asked.

For a second he thought Stiles didn’t hear him, but then he sighed and stopped pacing so he could look at Scott. “Look, I get that you’re trying to be a good friend, but I really don’t want to be kissed out of pity. It does far more damage than good.”

“I wasn’t kissing you out of pity,” Scott said, his face full of confusion. “I was kissing you because I wanted to.” He went to the edge of the bed and tried to get Stiles to come back, but Stiles moved his hand out of reach when he tried to take it. Stiles clearly still wasn’t happy. “I don’t understand. Why are you so upset?”

“I’m not upset,” Stiles replied, and Scott noticed the slight raise in heartbeat as he said that. “I’m just really baffled. Why the hell would you want to kiss me? Am I gonna be your Allison replacement or something?”

“Of course not!” Scott said indignantly. “I kissed you because I’ve been thinking about it and, well, I think I kind of like you too. Why do you keep assuming the worst of me?”

“Because I know that even if you like me a little, you don’t like me nearly as much as you love Allison. And yeah, we could have a fun summer of hooking up or dating or whatever it is you think we’d do, but I would spend the whole time knowing that no matter how much you like me, you would ditch me if Allison was interested again. Well, you probably wouldn’t because you’re too fucking kind-hearted, but you would want to, and I would be able to tell. And before you try to deny it, 20 minutes ago you said that you’re not planning on getting over her. There’s no way you changed your mind that quickly.”

Scott wanted to argue and say that Stiles was still assuming the worst of him, but he knew that Stiles had a point. Still, it didn’t hurt to try. “Don’t you think that if we dated, my feelings for you would grow? I’m not really ready to stop loving Allison, but I wouldn’t let that get in the way. I can have feelings for two people at once. Besides, given that we’re not even talking, I really doubt that she’ll want to date me any time soon, so you shouldn’t worry about it.”

“Even if she never spoke to you again, your feelings for her would still become an issue. Your heart wouldn’t really be in the relationship, even if you tried to make it work,” Stiles said. He paused, seeming to consider whether or not he should say something. “I know I’m being a bit overly cautious about this. It’s just…I already tried to ignore someone’s feelings for someone else. I tried to ignore that Lydia was in love with Jackson, and that ended miserably for me. I really don’t want to be in a situation like that again.”

How the hell was Scott the one being rejected? He wasn’t even the one who had a crush. Still, the mention of Lydia reminded him of something. “You know, I’m not the only one with baggage. You never answered my question from earlier. When you were talking about your crush, did you mean me or Lydia?”

That comment clearly took Stiles by surprise, which gave Scott a little satisfaction. “I meant Lydia,” Stiles admitted quietly. “But I dunno, I think those feelings are starting to die down. Probably because my crush on you has been growing.”

“But you’re still in love with her,” said Scott.

Stiles hesitated, but nodded in affirmation. “It’s still different than your situation. Unlike you, I kinda want to move on. Unfortunately, I decided to get a crush on yet another person who’s in love with someone else.”

Stiles shifted his weight from one leg to another and Scott idly swung his feet. Scott wasn’t sure what Stiles was thinking about; probably Lydia. Scott himself was trying to mull over what they talked about, and how he felt about Stiles’ feelings for Lydia. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to admit that Stiles was right. “So it sounds like neither of us is ready.”

“That pretty much sums it up, yeah.”

“Well, if there is a time in the future where neither of us is in love with someone else, would you wanna go out with me?”

Stiles clearly thought the question was ridiculous. “Of course I would. I can’t see that happening any time soon, but if it did then I would love to date you.” That made Scott smile in a really goofy way. “How about you? If we were ever both ready, would you want to, uh, date me?” he asked. Even though Scott kissed him, he still seemed unsure about what Scott’s answer would be.

Scott considered the question, but not for long. If nothing else, this conversation made him realize that even if he was still in love with Allison, he really did like Stiles a lot. “Definitely,” he said. Stiles’ responding smile was downright adorable.

Now that the conversation was finished and the atmosphere was less tense, Stiles was comfortable enough to sit back on the bed. But he still seemed hung up on something. He finally turned to Scott and said, “So, this is probably a stupid suggestion given how adamant I’ve been about not doing anything. But since we agree that we’re not starting anything right now, and since we already kissed, maybe we could kiss a little more?” Scott raised an eyebrow and Stiles hastily added, “Just today! And just kissing! I just really don’t wanna turn down a chance to make out with you, even if dating is a bad idea. And since we already kissed, it’s not like we’d be doing anything we haven’t already done today, right?”

“Talk about mixed messages,” Scott said. Stiles was about to speak in his own defense again, but Scott leaned in for a kiss before he had a chance to say anything.

This time, Stiles didn’t pull back. Instead, he licked at Scott’s lips, and Scott really hoped that this wasn’t the last kiss they’d share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Update: For those who were wondering about the end note about an epilogue, I decided not to do one. I think the story works best as is, and I don't have any good ideas for an epilogue.


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